Club finds its Niche as venue is bought out of liquidation

A famous nightclub in Sheffield is to re-open after a successful club owner bought the Arch 9 venue out of liquidation.

The venue, located at the city’s Wicker Arch, is to open in January bringing the popular Niche nightclub back into existence under the ownership of Steve Baxendale, who ran the original club on Sidney Street.

Sheffield-based Wilson Field acted as liquidators of the Arch 9 venue.

The venue closed less than a year into its existence after undergoing an extensive refurbishment. Despite the refurbishment it failed to pull in significant numbers of attendees.

Andy Wood, associate director and insolvency practitioner at Wilson Field, said: “The sale of Arch 9 will see a part of Sheffield’s music heritage revived.

“We were called in as liquidators for the venue after it failed to become established on the local nightclub circuit. Running a nightclub is difficult without an established brand and the return of Niche will be of interest to the large client base for this type of offering.”

Mr Baxendale said: “We are re-launching one of Sheffield’s most famous nightclubs and we will be bringing back our well-known DJs to create the great sounds that made Niche so popular.”

The original Niche club, which spawned the Bassline sub-genre, was forced to close in 2005 by the police.

But the new venue says it will have a stringent door policy for its re-opening, to target older club-goers who enjoyed its signature vocal Bassline music.

Mr Baxendale said: “The demand for Niche is there, we have a massive fan base and I wanted to give something back for those years of support from our core customers, but there will be some key differences to the old Niche.

“We are aiming this squarely at the music and the hardcore followers of Bassline. The club will open on alternate Saturdays for a discerning crowd and our door policy is strictly for the older Niche aficionados.

“We are deliberately not going down the route of discounted shots and cheap drinks and there will be no MCs to distract from the quality of top DJs – it is for people who miss the essence of the original club and they won’t be disappointed.”